‘Green’ Solar Panel Paves the Way for the Future

With depleting fossil fuel reserves and the increasing energy demand, solar energy has become one of the preferred off-grid energy resources. Looking at it superficially, solar energy seems to be environment friendly without any apparent harmful effect, but it is not entirely true. Solar panels are manufactured using harmful elements like cadmium and selenium, especially in the developing countries, which might be costly or difficult to dispose at the end of their operational cycle, which is about 20-25 years.

To counter this environmental problem, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have come up with an innovative solution of using “water soluble solar panels”. The scientists have developed solar panels made of cellulose nanocrystal substrates, which are found in plants. This material is reportedly transparent and allows sunlight to pass to the organic semi-conductor, which generates electricity. These thin-filmed solar panels are easy to dispose after they come to the end of their operational cycle, since they dissolve in water readily without any adverse ecological effects.

Countries around the world are pushing towards developing a solar energy infrastructure to reduce the global carbon footprint, but adequate measures for the safe disposal of solar panels are not in the minds of most. This technology if implemented on a commercial scale, can resolve the problem of disposing solar panels and sustain the environmental balance.

Although there are a lot of manufacturers, many are turning a blind eye towards long term environmental concerns, First Solar is one futuristic and environment conscious manufacturer which has a policy of recycling its CdTe (Cadmium Telluride), and CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide) solar panels, and keeps aside funds for this process from its sales revenue.

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Rakesh Singh
Rakesh holds an M.B.A. degree with specialization in Marketing and a Bachelor's degree in English language and literature. He also holds Post Graduate Diploma in Computers. He has published number of articles on different websites.
He has handled many reports across different verticals of ICT domain for the products such as air conditioning, refrigerators, wearable technology, big data and many more. Apart from the major regions, he also works on the country specific market for consumer goods and information technology markets such as the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Contact : rakesh@europlat.org